Corruption Seen as Russia’s Top Problem

A room full of top officials and leading finance professionals said corruption is currently the biggest problem facing Russia and said the country desperately needs to improve its investment climate.

Organizers of a high-profile business breakfast, organized by Vedomosti business newspaper, asked their guests to choose (by way of electronic voting) the key problem Russia needs to solve in order to realize its potential. Out of six choices, nearly 33% of the attendees picked “a high level of systemic and mundane corruption” as the most serious problem, with “unpredictability of government policies” coming in a close second, with 26.4%.

One dissenting voice was the deputy economy minister, Andrei Klepach, who picked “administrative barriers for creating and developing businesses” as the country’s biggest problem, along with just over 20% of the guests.

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“Many country’s that are more corrupt than Russia — for example, Mexico, Kazakhstan and India — have higher ratings for ease of doing business,” Mr. Klepach said. “If the system worked, we wouldn’t have to look at corruption as an unavoidable evil.”

Like many before him, including Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, Mr. Klepach also bemoaned the state of Russia’s roads. “In all these years, we can’t build a normal road from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It’s ridiculous,” he said.

When it came to necessary reforms, 72.6% said Russia needed to improve its investment climate.

Attendees included the former finance minister, Alexei Kudrin, government economists and chief economists of brokerage firms, investment bankers and traders.

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